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Dinner for One
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Dinner for One
Dinner for One, also known as The 90th Birthday (German: Der 90. Geburtstag), is a television comedy sketch that is repeated every New Year's Eve in several European countries. The two-hander sketch was originally written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. After featuring on the stage, the German TV broadcaster, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), recorded the sketch in 1963 as an 18-minute black-and-white videotape recording, performed in English by British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden. The sketch begins with an introduction in German, followed by the main act in English, and is available online.
It has become traditional viewing on New Year's Eve in countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. In Norway it is broadcast on 23 December. As of 1995 it was the most frequently repeated television programme in Germany. Despite originating as a British stage sketch, the TV version gained only limited recognition in the UK over 50 years after its recording. It was broadcast on New Year's Eve in Britain on Sky Arts from 2018 to 2020.
In other parts of the world, the sketch is broadcast in Australia and South Africa. Apart from a few satires, Dinner for One is not known in the United States, where the comic premise had already been made famous by Red Skelton and Lucille Ball.
In 2003, Danish TV producer Paul Anthony Sørensen directed and produced a documentary about the sketch that includes interviews with relatives of Freddie Frinton and May Warden. It was nominated for the Rose d'Or 2004.
In German-speaking countries, the broadcast features an introduction by Heinz Piper as the conferencier: Miss Sophie (Warden) is celebrating her 90th birthday. As every year, she has invited her four closest friends to a birthday dinner: Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr Pomeroy, and Mr Winterbottom. However, she has outlived all of them, requiring her butler James (Frinton) to impersonate the guests. In some non-German-speaking countries the introduction is omitted.
James must not only serve Miss Sophie the four courses à la russe – mulligatawny soup, North Sea haddock, chicken and fruit – but also serve the four imaginary guests the drinks chosen by Miss Sophie (sherry, white wine, champagne and port wine for the respective courses), slip into the role of each guest and drink a toast to Miss Sophie four times for each course. As a result, James becomes increasingly intoxicated and loses his dignified demeanour: he pours the drinks with reckless abandon, breaks into "Sugartime" by the McGuire Sisters for a brief moment, and at one point accidentally drinks from a flower vase, which he acknowledges with a grimace, exclaiming, "Oooh! I'll kill that cat!"
There are several running gags in the piece:
Miss Sophie concludes the evening with an inviting "I think I'll retire", to which James and Sophie repeat their exchange concerning the "same procedure". James takes a deep breath, turns to the audience with a sly grin and says "Well, I'll do my very best!" before the pair retreat to the upper rooms.
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Dinner for One
Dinner for One, also known as The 90th Birthday (German: Der 90. Geburtstag), is a television comedy sketch that is repeated every New Year's Eve in several European countries. The two-hander sketch was originally written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre. After featuring on the stage, the German TV broadcaster, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), recorded the sketch in 1963 as an 18-minute black-and-white videotape recording, performed in English by British comedians Freddie Frinton and May Warden. The sketch begins with an introduction in German, followed by the main act in English, and is available online.
It has become traditional viewing on New Year's Eve in countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. In Norway it is broadcast on 23 December. As of 1995 it was the most frequently repeated television programme in Germany. Despite originating as a British stage sketch, the TV version gained only limited recognition in the UK over 50 years after its recording. It was broadcast on New Year's Eve in Britain on Sky Arts from 2018 to 2020.
In other parts of the world, the sketch is broadcast in Australia and South Africa. Apart from a few satires, Dinner for One is not known in the United States, where the comic premise had already been made famous by Red Skelton and Lucille Ball.
In 2003, Danish TV producer Paul Anthony Sørensen directed and produced a documentary about the sketch that includes interviews with relatives of Freddie Frinton and May Warden. It was nominated for the Rose d'Or 2004.
In German-speaking countries, the broadcast features an introduction by Heinz Piper as the conferencier: Miss Sophie (Warden) is celebrating her 90th birthday. As every year, she has invited her four closest friends to a birthday dinner: Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr Pomeroy, and Mr Winterbottom. However, she has outlived all of them, requiring her butler James (Frinton) to impersonate the guests. In some non-German-speaking countries the introduction is omitted.
James must not only serve Miss Sophie the four courses à la russe – mulligatawny soup, North Sea haddock, chicken and fruit – but also serve the four imaginary guests the drinks chosen by Miss Sophie (sherry, white wine, champagne and port wine for the respective courses), slip into the role of each guest and drink a toast to Miss Sophie four times for each course. As a result, James becomes increasingly intoxicated and loses his dignified demeanour: he pours the drinks with reckless abandon, breaks into "Sugartime" by the McGuire Sisters for a brief moment, and at one point accidentally drinks from a flower vase, which he acknowledges with a grimace, exclaiming, "Oooh! I'll kill that cat!"
There are several running gags in the piece:
Miss Sophie concludes the evening with an inviting "I think I'll retire", to which James and Sophie repeat their exchange concerning the "same procedure". James takes a deep breath, turns to the audience with a sly grin and says "Well, I'll do my very best!" before the pair retreat to the upper rooms.